State Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, is welcoming a federal commitment of up to $5 billion to expand nuclear energy production at Constellation plants in Illinois, calling it another step toward strengthening the state's energy reliability and meeting rising electricity demand.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday a conditional loan commitment of up to $5 billion to support upgrades and modernization at eight Constellation nuclear facilities across Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania, according to Rezin's office. Six of those facilities are in Illinois: Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, Dresden, LaSalle and Quad Cities.
The planned improvements are expected to add nearly 1,100 megawatts of additional electricity generation across the three states, enough to power more than 930,000 homes, the release said.
Rezin joined U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and other elected officials Tuesday at Constellation's Byron Clean Energy Center to discuss the future of nuclear energy.
"Illinois is at the center of America's nuclear energy future, and investments like this are going to help keep it that way," Rezin said. "At a time when electricity demand is skyrocketing and families are already struggling with rising utility costs, expanding our existing nuclear facilities is exactly the kind of investment we need."
What the DOE said
According to the Department of Energy's announcement, the commitment comes through its Office of Energy Dominance Financing and would finance nuclear uprates and modernization — producing more electricity from existing plants rather than building new reactors. The agency said the projects would support more than 10,000 project-related jobs.
The DOE noted that while the conditional commitment indicates its intent to provide a loan, Constellation must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental and financial conditions before the department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan.
Private-sector agreements
The federal announcement builds on recent private-sector commitments, the release said. Earlier this month, Google and Constellation announced a 20-year agreement supporting more than $4.3 billion in planned investments to add 890 megawatts of nuclear generation across facilities in Illinois and other states.
That followed Meta's 20-year agreement with Constellation to support continued operations at the Clinton Clean Energy Center, preserving jobs and supporting an additional 30 megawatts of nuclear generation.
"The growing investments from companies like Meta and Google, combined with this latest federal commitment, shows how critically important nuclear energy has become to our nation's energy future," Rezin said. "These investments demonstrate that major companies and the federal government recognize something I have been advocating for years."
Background
Rezin represents the 38th Senate District, which includes Bureau, Putnam, LaSalle, Grundy and Kendall counties in north central Illinois, according to Wikipedia. She has long advocated for nuclear energy expansion and helped lead efforts to remove restrictions on new nuclear development in the state.
Illinois had a decades-old ban on new nuclear construction. The state lifted its moratorium on small modular reactors in 2023, and lawmakers lifted the ban on new large-scale nuclear plants under Senate Bill 25, the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, which Gov. JB Pritzker signed in January 2026, according to Shaw Local.
"Illinois has an opportunity to build on this momentum, but that requires policies that encourage investment rather than stand in its way," Rezin said. "We need to protect our existing nuclear fleet, make it easier to develop new nuclear facilities, and ensure we have enough reliable electricity to meet future demand."